Guide Dogs UK has teamed up with Macmillan Children’s Books and Magic Light Pictures to create scent kits to bring the popular story to life for visually impaired children.
The new scent kits are part of a campaign by the charity to highlight the experiences of children with sight loss and how by making adaptations, their world can be made more inclusive. 150 of the kits will be given to families of visually impaired children that the charity supports
All of the favourite characters have been included in the new kit, with five inhalers, one each to represent the smell of the Gruffalo himself, the mouse, owl, snake and fox. The Gruffalo smell is a stinky, leathery, barnyard scent, the mouse smells of cupcakes, owl has the air of a freshly poured cup of tea, fox’s scent is cut grass, and the snake has a smoky smell.
Sensory stories have been shown to provide children with a more interactive and enriched experience, bringing pictures to life. 80 per cent of how we learn is visual, so including different senses in story time in this way, helps to make children with visual impairment feel more included.
The specialist Education Support Team at Guide Dogs, has also developed a bank of resources to support parents of children with a vision impairment, including bringing other classic children’s books to life using touch and sound.
Roger Whalley, father of Josie, aged eight, who helped to test the kits and has cerebral vision impairment, said: “This concept is fantastic, it meant that Josie and her brother, who has no visual impairments, were equal. It’s a completely new way of experiencing the story where Josie talks about her imagination and discusses it with her brother – it’s very inclusive and we all loved it.”
